Seòmar agus comataidhean

I go back to the interesting question about the use of the word “commissioners”. What role do they fulfil? If we understand what the problem is, we can find a solution. Sometimes we struggle to understand what the problem is, and we perhaps impose a solution. I will leave it at that.

Absolutely. It is always worth saying happy birthday to any institution but particularly a Parliament.

It is not just about the capacity of the MSPs or a simple numbers game. Structures exist within the Parliament. People who were here and are no longer here seem to level criticism against the committee system. That debate is always welcome.

The challenge with commissioners boils down to the level of responsibility in that the budget comes from one legal entity and the scrutiny of the role of the commissioner rests with the Parliament and its committees. I am not suggesting that we put the functions together, but the oversight committee’s responsibility has to be specific and the vehicles have to exist for it to be able to see into the whole thing and hold it to account.

Earlier, I talked about blockages. When management goes from green to amber, the oversight committee’s role is to ask questions. Because of the independence of commissioners, it is a difficult area to get into, but the independence of the commissioners who answer to my committee is in how they conduct their investigations, in their conclusions and in their reports, but not necessarily in how their organisation operates.

I am talking specifically about the commissioners who report to my committee or who are overseen by my committee. The independence of those commissioners is crucial because of the questions that come in front of them and what they do.

In the area of freedom of information, a series of steps has to be gone through before an issue goes to the Scottish Information Commissioner. If someone puts in an FOI and the organisation looks at it and provides an insufficient answer, an appeal can be made. There is a structured process for how a constituent goes from submitting a letter to find out about, for example, the outflow of rubbish into a bay all the way through to when they feel that they need to go to the commissioner. That process is clearly articulated. The number that come to the commissioner for a decision represent a tiny minority of those that come into the system.

The commissioner’s role in that quasi-judicial process is different from their role as an advocate. The advocacy role is about giving voice to a group who otherwise could not participate in a system or to individuals who feel that they are being stopped from participating in that system. There is a lot to be said for articulating the value of what it is that a certain group of people—regardless of whether they have a vote—are not able to contribute to in the system.

An issue that has constantly been raised, including by a number of commissioners, is the fact that the children’s commissioner knows how to engage with young people so that they can contribute to a discussion, which rarely happens in the formal setting of a committee room. That advocacy role is massively important, because it allows for the individualisation of access.

The commissioners who answer to my committee have a set process to go through that involves a vast amount of work. That means that, when you get to the commissioner, you are at the top of the pyramid. The cases that go there go there for a reason, and that leads to an investigation. What becomes important is the learning circle about how we avoid getting into that position. In that regard, the code of conduct and the guidance for MSPs sit with my committee.

My sense is that the commissioners who come before my committee understand that they are working within an envelope. However, the experiences that they have had show, in essence, that the vehicle that was expected to work within that envelope was perhaps not as fit for purpose as it should have been. There have been proposals from both commissioners about how they can streamline, not by cutting corners but by making their organisation more efficient. There is an obligation on them to do that.

As for the risk of the exponential spread of commissioners’ costs, you need to look at what the commissioners do. For example, freedom of information is important in Scotland, and FOI requests are used a lot. There is a criticism whereby people suggest that it is the same group of people who constantly do it, but the FOI legislation is about moving to a period of transparency at the point of delivery, to actually reduce the number of FOI requests. So, there is a route map, but it requires a change in groupthink in certain organisations.

The Ethical Standards Commissioner is the backstop for the ethical standards that we, along with councillors and various public appointments, should be acting to. You have to ask whether we need someone to judge that, and historically, sadly, it is useful to have someone to be that judge or assessor. A funding requirement goes with that, because the cases are becoming more complex with the existence of social media platforms and things like that.

Again, the easy answer is that there is a set budget and that is it. The real answer is to ask what we want them to do and to empower the committees not to step on their independence but to provide that critical oversight to see where there is value for money. That then goes back to the blockage point that I was talking about. In a sense, there are aspects that are falling between the paving stones, which we have seen can cause massive problems. If they were avoided and had been avoided for a period of time, maybe we would be in a different position with regard to the outlay.

In some ways, there has been a frustration with the freedom of information and the Information Commissioner because an expectation has been created of an entitlement to information that is perhaps not accurate.

This goes back to whether the Information Commissioner can do themselves out of the freedom of information job. A substantial part of their work is shifting that fundamental balance, in essence, to publish and open up so that the information is there and constituents—and I am thinking here about my own case load—and others have the best understanding possible of a decision.

The Ethical Standards Commissioner’s role is slightly different. On one level, it is for elected members to get it right and to understand the importance, the privilege and the Nolan principles that we talk about. The Commissioner was to be the independent guardian of those for the people of Scotland.

If we look purely at the responsibility for the standards of elected members, the Ethical Standards Commissioner would be more than happy to do themselves out of a job. However, that onus rests elsewhere.

That brings us to item 3, in which the Minister for Parliamentary Business will provide the committee with additional evidence on the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill, following our own investigations. The minister is joined by Iain Hockenhull, bill team leader, and Angus Reid, elections policy officer, Scottish Government; and by Lorraine Walkinshaw and David Maclennan, who are lawyers from the Scottish Government legal directorate. I welcome you all to the meeting.

We are also joined by Bob Doris, and I expect Graham Simpson MSP to join the meeting later. I intend to allow both of them to put questions on the bill to the minister. Graham is unable to join us at the start of this meeting, because of other parliamentary commitments.

Minister, I am more than happy for your officials to be here during the questioning and for them to respond, as you see best, to the committee’s queries. However, for the purposes of preparing the report on the bill, we will consider all the responses that we receive today to be the views of the Government, unless you indicate to the contrary. I hope that that is acceptable.

Another matter that I want to raise relates to correspondence dated 30 April that we have received from you on electoral reform secondary legislation. It runs to a considerable number of pages, and the committee has not had an opportunity to look at it, so I am hopeful that you will indicate that, should we need to take further evidence from you at a later date, you will be content to give it.

I agree. We all have a similar vision of where we want to end up, but how we get there is apparently still more of a challenge than was perhaps anticipated.

I will ask the next question in a slightly different way, which I hope will be of more assistance. There is a proposal that there should be two deputy convener posts within the EMB—in essence, to cover the two distinct elements of its work. Is the Scottish Government in agreement with that proposal?

Potentially—subject to approval—it is right that the bill should indicate that post-legislative scrutiny is important. Will the Government therefore give consideration to the inclusion in the financial memorandum of the on-going and subsequent costs of that? That is something for you to think about; I will not hold you to giving a “yes” answer straight away.

That is very helpful.

Minister and those who serve you, I thank you very much for your evidence today. As you hinted, we have another matter to do with elections to deal with, but I thank you for your attendance today and I look forward to receiving the information that you have offered us.